PLM's CAD heritage

What a difference a year makes. For much of 2003, says Forrester Research analyst Navi Radjou, Cambridge, Mass., sales of product life-cycle management (PLM) applications were driven by software companies pushing customers to buy. This year, propelled both by offshoring and a strong consumer demand for fresh new products in the malls, it's usually the manufacturer that is picking up the phone.

But who to call? To be a credible PLM vendor, is a deep bench of CAD expertise a prerequisite? It's a question asked today by many would-be PLM users—and not so very long ago, the answer was unequivocal: to be a credible PLM vendor, you did need to have your roots in CAD.

Back then, says Radjou, PLM functionality was relatively limited, and viewing it as an extension of a CAD application made sense. But even though ERP vendors now are tabling PLM offerings, manufacturers are likely to remain skeptical about the inability to meet PLM needs—chiefly because of the paucity of CAD capability.

Instead, he points to MatrixOne as an example of a company that doesn't have a heritage in CAD, yet still offers PLM functionality that is adequate for many companies' needs. MatrixOne is "CAD-agnostic," he explains—working with a number of leading CAD solutions, and taking their CAD output as the starting point for MatrixOne's own PLM functionality.

But how important is that CAD capability in the first place? According to Boston-based AMR Research Analyst Mike Burkett, the fast-growing ranks of PLM vendors provide manufacturers with an opportunity to more closely match a PLM solution to their requirements—which may not include a heavy-duty CAD capability. From a PLM perspective, says Burkett, "Companies must ask themselves where their pain point is." And if the pain point isn't in the design process, then a CAD-centric PLM solution isn't necessary.

Instead, if the pain point lies with managing a product after the design has been passed to production, then a PLM solution from an ERP vendor such as SAP or Oracle may be the best way forward.

"The ERP vendors look at PLM from a business point of view, taking the bill of material—not the CAD design—as the starting point," says Burkett. "They're more concerned with questions like, 'Which suppliers do I use for each part? How can I ensure I'm using common suppliers and getting the best deal?' You have to start with the pain point: sometimes the CAD-centric view will be correct, and sometimes the ERP-centric view will be correct."